La guerre sans nom

'L'Alg‚rie c'est la France' was what every French pupil was taught. However, in 1962 French colonial domination of Algeria was ended. It took a war of eight years to get that far. A war which was not called a war because officially it involved only measures to maintain domestic order. Thirty years later Bertrand Tavernier visited a number of French veterans and asked them about their experiences in Algeria. Some of them dissociate themselves from their role in the Algerian question, others remain convinced that the French have mainly benefited Algeria. The declaration of independence in 1962 deeply shocked all interviewees, without exception. "The Algerian war could not give the French soldiers a trauma, because there had never been a war", Bertrand Tavernier stated in an interview. He made a penetrating portrait of this 'invisible generation'.